Forcefield Analysis

What is Forcefield Analysis?

The forcefield analysis is a tool used to help organisations understand the impact of forces impacting the business before implementing changes. The forcefield analysis identifies factors that may restrain (prevent or slow) the change initiative from meeting its goal and benefits.  It also identifies forces that help drive the change.  These driving and restraining forces hold a business or organisation in a state of ‘inaction’ when no change is considered.

Why is it important?

The forcefield helps identify:

• Key actions required for success before the initiative starts.
• Forces that could hinder the change so the businesses can confirm if the change should proceed.
• Forces that can be utilised to improve the success of the change.

Prerequisites

Confirm the extent of the planned change, the goals, objectives and benefits before applying the forcefield analysis.

Steps to complete a forcefield analysis:

Download the template and plan workshops with all key stakeholders involved in planning and implementing change. 

Ideally, you would have between 4-10 key stakeholders in the workshop.  This amount is a guide only as the key is for the workshops to have a manageable number of participants.  If you have more key stakeholders, then schedule more workshops. 

The following steps can be used in the analysis; however, topics will vary depending on the change and the organisation.

1. Define the change:

• Establish precisely the goal or vision of what the change will achieve.
• Document this in the middle box between the Driving and Restraining forces.

2. Scope the change:

In the workshop(s) with the key stakeholders, discuss the following:

• What are the drivers for the change, and why is this necessary? Any opinions or feedback from employees about the proposed change.
• The impact on the business of the proposed change.
• Risks to the business.
• Impact on the organisation if the change is not implemented.

3. Identify the forces:

• Identify the driving and restraining forces and added to the template.
• Managing and removing personal or divisional biases is essential when identifying the forces. 

The Driving and Restraining forces for each organisation and their key stakeholders will be different.  An important part of the forcefield analysis to identify the forces that relate to this change programme. 

The left side of the forcefield is for the ‘driving forces’ that support the change. Driving forces are usually positive factors that help the business or organisation. 

Examples of driving forces are:

• Increasing efficiency whilst reducing the overall cost of a process, leading to better productivity.
• Increasing profitability, leading to being more sustainable
• Customer expectations.
• On-going cost reductions.
• Reducing training time

The right side of the forcefield is the ‘restraining forces’ that oppose, hinder or impede the change. 

Examples of restraining forces are:

• Cost and/or time to implement the change.
• The duration and effort.
• Culture of the organisation.
• Complex technology.
• New skills required by staff.
• Resistance to change.

4. Rank the forces:

The forces are ranked by importance so the businesses can prioritise which forces need the most attention to ensure the change initiative's success.

• Typically, rank the forces on a scale of 1-5.  With 0 being the least important and five being the most important.
• Ideally, ranking is completed remotely after the workshop, so group members aren’t influenced by one another.
• The overall restraining and driving score determines the proposed change's viability.

A SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis may be used after using the forcefield analysis to help further identify and rank the impacts.

5. Report the results:

Report the results of the forcefield analysis to the organisation with a recommendation to proceed.  The results of the Forcefield analysis also feed into the Stakeholder Analysis section of the Change Implementation Plan (CIP). 

The report should contain the following information:

• What is the change / what is it achieving if implemented?
• What forces are most important (in the ranked order) to be successful for a change?
• How is the organisation going to overcome and address the forces?
• How long will it take for the change to be implemented?